Job details

Systems Engineer (Compiler)

Join us at Irreducible as we accelerate the ZK revolution by supporting web3 networks with reliable and cost-efficient proof generation. We’re a high-performance cryptography startup (with an exciting hardware twist) looking for a talented Systems Engineer with a focus on Compilers. A more technical description of what we do is below!

Role Overview

As a Compiler Engineer on the Systems Software team, you will work on the translation of algorithms to a cryptographic processor. The vectorized, multicore processors have a custom instruction set designed specifically for binary field operations, and they run in FPGAs in production. The tools you build may be embedded programming languages, special-purpose compilers, and machine emulators. You will work closely with the hardware and cryptography teams on both the instruction set specifications and high-level program representations. This work will have a direct impact on Irreducible’s success by improving the product’s developer experience and performance library APIs, or integrating our stack with blockchain networks.

Necessary Qualifications

Professional software engineering experience
Proficiency with Rust or C++
Experience writing or reverse-engineering CPU assembly code
Experience writing virtual machine interpreters or emulators
Experience with programming language design or runtime implementation
Understanding of software engineering best practices, especially testing
Familiarity with zero-knowledge cryptography concepts
Mathematical aptitude

Bonus Qualifications

Experience with performance tuning and optimization
Functional programming
Experience writing GPU or vectorized SIMD software
Experience writing Rust procedural macros
Experience implementing a compiler or working with compilation frameworks like LLVM
Understanding of programming language design
Experience with non-standard ISAs
Experience with hardware accelerators for AI/ML

Locations supported:

We’re looking for candidates who are located between the USA East Coast and Central Europe time zones.

We are also in the process of opening an office in Berlin, and are excited to support relocation, on a case by case basis. Once our office is open, we plan to bring the whole company together for ~one week per quarter in Berlin.

We have a globally distributed company, and ensuring the team works in a cohesive way is our main goal.

About us:

We're building out a high-performance, cost-efficient compute stack for advanced cryptographic proofs, specifically zk-SNARKs. Verifiable computing with zk-SNARKs is taking off as a solution to the scalability and privacy limitations that today's blockchains suffer from. A new wave of blockchain protocols that use zk-SNARKs to prove smart contract executions, such as Polygon zkEVM, Starknet, and zkSync, are already in production. We believe there is a big market opportunity to generate proofs for these networks at scale in a cost-effective way [1]. There are lots of interesting performance engineering challenges we need to solve to keep up with the maximum device throughput.

We take the approach of co-designing hardware and software systems to accelerate SNARK generation end-to-end. Our first-generation tech stack uses FPGA accelerators running custom digital logic tailor-made for our use case [2].

We also conduct cryptography research to identify computationally efficient algorithms for verifiable computing. These research efforts produced a novel cryptographic construction based on towers of binary fields called Binius [3] [4], which we are currently developing into a production-grade system.

Our team has cross-domain expertise and includes hardware designers, low-level systems software engineers, cryptography engineers, and data center specialists, several of whom worked in HFT previously.

[1] https://www.paradigm.xyz/2022/04/zk-hardware

[2] https://www.ulvetanna.io/news/fpga-architecture-for-goldilocks-ntt

[3] https://www.ulvetanna.io/news/binius-hardware-optimized-snark

[4] https://cointelegraph.com/news/vitalik-buterin-explains-binius-improve-zero-knowledge-proofs

[5] https://www.ulvetanna.io/news/introducing-ulvetanna

NOTE: We can not sponsor visas of any kind at this time.

We are committed to creating a diverse and inclusive workplace where talented individuals can thrive and grow. We value the different perspectives, experiences, and backgrounds that each person brings to our team. Even if you don't fit 100% of the job's necessary qualifications, we'd still love to hear from you.

To all recruitment agencies: Irreducible does not accept agency resumes. Please do not forward resumes to our jobs alias, Irreducible employees, or any other organisation location. Irreducible is not responsible for any fees related to unsolicited resumes. Please read our full policy here.

What You Should Know About Systems Engineer (Compiler), Irreducible

Join us at Irreducible as we accelerate the ZK revolution by supporting web3 networks with reliable and cost-efficient proof generation. We’re a high-performance cryptography startup located in Berlin, and we're excited to welcome a talented Systems Engineer specializing in Compilers to our team. In this role, you will be at the forefront of translating advanced algorithms into practice on our cutting-edge cryptographic processors. These multicore processors are designed with a unique instruction set tailored for binary field operations and are integrated within FPGAs for production use. Your creativity and technical skills will shine as you develop tools such as programming languages, bespoke compilers, and machine emulators that enhance developer experiences and optimize our performance library APIs. Collaborating closely with our hardware and cryptography teams, you will play an essential role in defining instruction set specifications and high-level program representations that align with our mission. If you have a passion for software engineering, a knack for Rust or C++, and a curiosity for the principles of zero-knowledge cryptography, we warmly invite you to help us carve out the future of blockchain technology. Our team is dedicated to cohesive collaboration, with plans to meet regularly in Berlin as we grow.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) for Systems Engineer (Compiler) Role at Irreducible

What are the responsibilities of a Systems Engineer (Compiler) at Irreducible?

As a Systems Engineer (Compiler) at Irreducible, your key responsibilities will include translating algorithms into our custom cryptographic processors, developing tools like special-purpose compilers and machine emulators, and collaborating with hardware and cryptography teams on instruction set specifications. You will also improve the developer experience while optimizing our performance library APIs.